


Customer Service

by shatteredelysium



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blowjobs, Dildos, F/F, F/M, M/M, Masturbation, Sex Shop, Sex Toys, also guys just to be v clear this is an ereri story pls be aware, also probably too much sex, college student!eren, inappropriate work sex oops, too many dildos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:48:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredelysium/pseuds/shatteredelysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is sure that he doesn't need another job at another ridiculous convenience store, not when he got fired from his last job. Mikasa, however, seems to think otherwise and forces him into taking on a job as a sales clerk at a place he never even knew existed. </p><p>Especially since it's a sex shop, and especially because one of his coworkers, the one with the strange gray eyes, is far too attractive and is hiding far too many secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FRIENDS i am back and i will actually update often now, bless you all for reading this (both old and new readers, welcome welcome!)

“Eren.”

“Eren.”

“ _Eren.”_ The brunet rolls over in his bed and moans, grasping at his phone to check the time. Then he moans again, exaggerating the noise for effect and waving the device around in the air.

“Jesus _fuck,_ Mikasa, it’s only noon,” Eren says, intelligently, wrapping himself deeper in his cocoon of blankets. “Let a man get his beauty sleep, can’t you?” He throws his phone in Mikasa’s general direction, hoping that it might hit her in the face and knock her out and give him reason to keep sleeping.

“You’re such a _diva,_ Eren, so much of one that I can’t imagine how you look like you’re hung-over every single day.”

“Oh, shut up.” He gripes, screwing his eyes shut even tighter and rolling away from her voice and pretending like he can’t hear her. “How’d you get in, anyway?”

“Your front door was unlocked.” Mikasa strides over to the curtains on the opposite side of the room and throws them open; yellow sunlight streams in, forcing Eren to cover his eyes with a lazy arm. “As far as I know, it doesn’t ever lock in the first place. Maybe you should start barricading it with furniture.”

“I hate this damn apartment,” he grumbles, finally sitting up and pushing aside his shitty blankets. He drags himself out of bed when the morning breath becomes unbearable, deciding to splash some cold water on his face and maybe while he’s at it also brush his teeth.

“Then find another job and rent a better apartment,” his sister says, following him through the door. “I’ll make you some food.”

Eren groans again for what feels like the billionth time since she woke him up – “You’re momming me again, it’s too early for this shit” – and shuts the bathroom door.

It’s _technically_ not his fault that he’s now officially a broke, jobless college kid now, because when he still had his job at the convenience store next to the university this one old lady seemed to find her life’s purpose in insisting (every time she showed up, no less) that Eren had short-changed her. Which was her problem, not his.

He may or may not have punched her and caused her to fall and sprain an ankle, which again, was her problem, not his.

Grabbing a comb, he angrily yanks through his tangled locks before giving up and trying to brush his teeth, and then he actually brushes his teeth with a toothbrush instead of comb, and then he’s finally done and he’s stomping into the kitchen.

Mikasa’s already standing in front of the stove, fiddling with the burner and holding onto a pan and apparently managing to also point to the small table next to the kitchen window (Eren has to look twice, because she definitely does _not_ have three hands), where there’s a plate with some toast and scrambled eggs.

He sits down, swallows a bite of food first, and then waves his fork at her. “I told you, you don’t have to –“

“I didn’t come here to make you breakfast,” she warns, whipping around to brandish the spatula at him (he shuts up, because if they get in a fight he’s definitely not winning with a measly fork). “Although, you know, you’d think that college would force you to grow up, but it still feels like I take care of you more than you take care of yourself.”

“God bless you, Mikasa, and I hope you’re always around to make me brunch at twelve-fucking-whatever in the afternoon.”

“Eren, has anyone ever told you that you’re a sack of shit?” She wipes her hands on her jeans and dumps the cooking utensils in Eren’s sink, coming over to the table and pulling out a chair to sit down.

He pretends to think. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe the other sack of shit sitting in front of me?”

“Seriously? Are you like three?”

“When’s my birthday, Mikasa?” Eren asks her, plastering an earnest expression on his face. “You do the math.”

Watching him with an unimpressed frown, she sighs. “Whatever, Eren. I came here to talk about that job I found you.”

“Oh my god, we’ve been over this like three hundred times.” Eren purposely chokes on his eggs so that he can bug his eyes out at her and generally look like an idiot, but she crosses her arms and gives him the classic I’m-not-taking-your-bullshit-right-now glare that _maybe_ Eren’s been trying to copy so that he can use it sometimes.

He scowls right back at her and tries to look serious while he attempts to place an obscenely large piece of toast into his mouth. “I’m _not_ working as another sales clerk at another _ridiculous_ store.”

“You’ll be broke forever, and you’ll end up homeless and without a home and you’ll have to beg in the streets and ask people for money.”

“You’re being redundant,” he says, waving his fork around again. He’s sure he could qualify as some sort of public health hazard: _crazy college kid aggressively gesticulating with kitchen utensils_. “And to be honest, you know perfectly well that I’d rather live in a cardboard box on the side of the road instead of working another job that is literally nothing but ‘Hi, how’s your day? How may I help you? Yes, of course you can pay in pennies and I’ll spend thirty fucking minutes counting your change!’” The pitch of his voice rises higher and higher, and his sentence only stops because he’s too out of breath to keep talking. “Anyway, like, I _know_ the manager will hate me anyway and it’ll just be bad all around and –“

“Look, Eren.” Mikasa stands and cuts him off, crossing to the burner and hauling the pan she used earlier into the sink. “You can complain until all hell breaks loose, but also your credentials are shit and the fact that you got fired from your last job isn’t going to help you at all. This manager is incredibly nice, _I promise,_ and he’s willing to give you another chance, and _also_ the interview is in, oh” – she glances at the time on Eren’s microwave (two minutes slow as far as he knows, but he also can’t remember the last time he actually bothered to check it against the time displayed on his phone) – “half an hour or so.”

He sits at the table gaping at her as she tells him that she’ll wait outside, and that he better hurry the hell up. Then he sits for a while longer gaping at the place she was standing and decides that, well, of all the things that he could be doing right now, he can at least go judge for himself how nice the manager is.

Placing his dirty dish into the sink and making a mental note to _actually_ do the dishes tonight, he walks into his room and rummages around in his dresser and in the clothes lying on the carpet, only to come to the conclusion that he apparently owns too much casual wear and not enough formal attire. He shrugs and opts to pull on a questionably clean pair of beige khakis, an old band t-shirt that’s almost faded enough to pass for entirely black (Pink Floyd, maybe?), and a black cardigan, because he’s too lazy to actually look nice and also _fuck Mikasa_.

Eren apologizes to her in his head – _that was rude, sorry._

“You look homeless,” Mikasa comments as soon as he steps out of the apartment, and Eren promptly retracts his mental apology. Shooting her a dirty look, he locks the front door and gives it a silent warning to _stay_ locked until he gets back. “Do you have your wallet? Phone?”

“Yes, please and thank you, _mom_.” As soon as Mikasa turns to walk down the staircase he double-checks his pockets anyway to make sure he has everything.

By the time they push open the glass doors of the lobby and make their way into the cold city air, he’s already regretting not putting on a thicker coat. God knows why his apartment happens to be smack in the middle of nowhere and somewhere, not close enough to places he needs to go to warrant a short enough walk without getting hypothermia and not far enough away from those places to be worth the bus fare.

So of course they end up walking, briskly if only to avoid freezing to death, and Eren earns a fair share of strange glances from passing strangers (stereotypes will be stereotypes, and apparently Eren looks shifty enough for them to skirt him by a wide radius, and so _maybe_ Mikasa was right about his outfit). He shoves his hands inside his pockets and pretends that there’s now a gray thundercloud forming above his head.

The cloud is just about to let loose with a torrent of rain right before lightning strikes Eren dead, but unfortunately Mikasa drags him to a halt at an innocuous-looking brick storefront before his imagination can get there. Harmless enough, he supposes – friendly white lettering curls into the words “Wings of Freedom” just above the door, and the glass in the door looks like it’s been freshly washed or something, all shiny and _new-_ looking.  It’s just your normal, run-of-the-mill convenience store.

That’s why Eren’s halfway through the door before he stops suddenly, one foot already through the doorway; Mikasa bumps into him from behind, and she’s giving him a funny look, he’s sure of it.

He turns around and walks right back outside.

“Eren?” Thank god Mikasa is there to tell him his name, because Eren’s mental dialogue is slowly degenerating into an unintelligible string of cuss words.

He has never seen such an impressive array of dildos before, and that’s the one other thing he’s sure of right now.

“If you don’t come in, I’m coming back out and I’ll _make_ you come in,” she warns.

Eren pulls open the door and sticks only his head inside. “Excuse me, but I thought I was working at a _convenience store._ ”

“I never said that.” Mikasa shrugs, looking entirely unimpressed. “You didn’t listen when I said it was a sex shop. And if you really think about it, _technically_ this is a store that happens to be rather convenient if you wanted something like sex supplies.”

“That’s not what I _meant_.”

Staring at him, Mikasa just keeps standing there, patient and biding her time and concerned about Eren’s well-being – she also happens to be wearing the Eren-get-your-ass-in-here-or-I’ll-beat-the-shit-out-of-you face, so he figures that if he values his life he might as well get this interview over with. He sighs and straightens his cardigan, reluctantly inserting his body through the small opening in the doorway.

An annoyingly cheerful bell signals Eren’s impending doom (because if the manager doesn’t kill him first, Mikasa might decide to do him the favor after they leave), and the two workers behind the counter look up. Opting to tactfully avoid looking at both the employees and the items displayed around the store, Eren lets Mikasa guide him toward a small wooden door in the back labelled with “EMPLOYEES ONLY” in small gold lettering.

Okay, fine, maybe he wants to see what kind of people work in a sex shop.   _Just a little peek._

His idea turns out to be both a really good one and a really horrible one, because he briefly scans over the person (the woman?) with a long ponytail and thick-rimmed glasses and determines that thankfully, this person probably isn’t a weird pervert, and then his gaze rests on the shorter man standing next to his coworker.

Who is blatantly sizing Eren up, and he has one unimpressed eyebrow raised under his black bangs, and he also has these striking gray eyes, and as Eren feels the red creeping to his cheeks, he also turns toward the person next to him and whispers, loudly, “Three bucks he’s a virgin.”

Eren practically chokes and he can feel the blood all the way in his ears when Mikasa forces him through the wooden door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go here we go 
> 
> hit me up @ [adaryble](http://adaryble.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's not appropriate, not in the slightest, and Eren suddenly imagines himself dying a rather melodramatic death by heart attack in the middle of his apartment, alone, _with a white box holding a black dildo sitting innocently in front of his corpse_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i gave up on editing bc this turned out so much longer than it should've been... 
> 
> basically eren can't handle himself during interviews but he is very very good at handling himself in other ways, if you catch my drift

“I’m going out with a friend,” Mikasa says, placing a hand on Eren’s shoulder. “I’m sure you won’t keel over from anxiety in the middle of the interview.”

“Same goes for you, _thank you_ , stop worrying, okay, and stay conscious,” he shoots back, coherent sentences be damned. He looks around quickly, confused prospective employee standing in what appears to be a plain white hallway branching off into an impressive number of rooms (but also, really, it’s a remarkable array of rooms for the back area of a sex shop, and Eren briefly wonders why there are so many of them). “Go live your own life.”

Eren waves her off and gives her what he assumes is a reassuring smile, walking toward the single door at the end of the hallway; it’s the only one marked with a golden plaque, so he comes to the wise conclusion that the room behind it must be the manager’s office. He’s right, of course, as he draws close enough to read the neatly engraved “MANAGER” on the sign, and he mentally pats himself on the back until he gets the odd feeling that Mikasa (who’s _still_ hovering around the other door) might implode if he doesn’t hurry up, and then he finally turns the doorknob and steps inside.

The room is a desk. Eren’s mind short-circuits a little as the door swings shut behind him –the room’s sole purpose is likely to serve as the repository for this desk, which is massive and imposing and possibly the most extravagant piece of furniture he’s ever seen. He’s obviously not a connoisseur in the area of office desks and furniture wood, but the brown luster of the desk is so rich that he can practically _taste_ it.

Mind jumping to an impressive montage of a fat old manager putting his feet up on this fancy-ass desk every day as he watches his workers toil themselves to death, Eren glances around the room and notes everything else. There isn’t much, just two sofas around a small coffee table to Eren’s right and a tall glass cabinet to Eren’s left, and that’s probably why the desk stands out so much among the rest of the very plain and very beige furniture.

And then Eren suddenly realizes that there’s actually a _person_ behind the desk, who has two hands clasped on the surface of the desk and Eren’s mind conveniently decides to shut down, because this person is very much _not_ fat and _not_ old, and this – _attractive? –_ person is the manager.

The man watches Eren with a faint smile, cheekbones lifting underneath a face that Eren kind of wants to touch just to see if it’s actually sculpted of marble, gorgeous and smooth and _clean._ Eren’s tempted to salute or call this man “Sir” or bow in deference or _something_ , because the man behind the desk radiates a quiet authority from the tips of his blond hair to his crisply pressed suit to the simple _bulk_ of his figure. The slot machine in Eren’s mind quickly scrolls through _army general_ and _former varsity football player_ and _Captain America_ to settle, strangely enough, on _underwear model_ _,_ a thought he quickly forces himself to dispel. This guy is an armored tank to Eren’s measly foot soldier, and the brunet figures that he doesn’t stand a chance in a fight against this _hulk_ of a man.

While Eren finds himself in a sudden mid-life crisis, the manager stands and extends a hand, elegant and graceful and poised and not at all aggressive or daunting (okay, maybe a little) like Eren would’ve assumed. His jacket sleeve is rolled halfway up his forearm, just the right touch of casual to make Eren relax slightly, and also just enough to expose the subtle coils of muscle in his arm. “I’m Erwin Smith.” He smiles wide, all white teeth and warm voice, crinkles appearing around his eyes and melting the shards of striking blue in his irises. “You must be Eren Jaeger.”

“Right, yeah, that’s me. Eren Jaeger. Yes,” Eren gets out, after he puts some ridiculous effort into clearing his throat. He grasps the manager’s hand and almost flinches away – _yes, probably could break my neck with that grip of his –_ but catches himself in time and holds the handshake for a good few seconds until it really starts to get uncomfortable, and then Erwin Smith finally releases his poor hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith.”

“Call me Erwin,” the man says, gesturing at Eren to sit down in the small velvet-backed chair that definitely wasn’t there earlier. “Won’t do to be too formal, will it?”

Eren complies, and as soon as they both sit down, Eren’s mind rather unfortunately chooses to notice the _very_ impressive set of eyebrows sitting above Erwin’s eyes, and his thought process goes straight from _remember to politely address the manager_ to _Eyebrow Erwin has a nice ring to it_.

“Tell me a little bit about yourself, Eren.”

Clearing his throat again, Eren forces himself to make eye contact with Erwin and maybe also take this interview more seriously. He gives the manager the standard replies – college student majoring in art, 22 years old, needs a job to pay rent and bills – and then tacks on some vague bullshit about how he’s an _excellent_ worker and how he feels really bad about being fired from his last job and how he regrets lashing out at the _poor_ old lady who didn’t mean any harm by asking him to count her change three times every time she made a trip to the convenience store. Throughout his spiel his eyes keep drifting up past Erwin’s eyes and finding some sort of comfort in staring at his eyebrows, and then he realizes what he’s doing and he looks back at Erwin, who is watching Eren with friendly interest and nodding slightly from time to time.

He runs out of steam after a while, and he jiggles his foot underneath his chair while Erwin seems to contemplate his next words. “Eren, I don’t really know how to put this,” he starts.

 _Shit, I’m getting the axe before I even start the job_ , Eren thinks, watching Erwin’s face warily as mild panic settles in. _Quite literally, because Mikasa might kill me later. Then I won’t even need to find another job, because I’ll be rotting in a gutter somewhere or I’ll be at the bottom of a river or I’ll be in a million pieces in my bathtub._

 _“_ But really, the job is yours if you want it.”

_Oh._

“The truth is, one of our employees quit recently because he found another full-time, better-paying job, and we’ve been rather hard-pressed for workers and you’re the only one who’s applied.” Touching his index fingers to the bridge of his nose, Erwin sighs, a gust and a breeze, looking down at what is presumably his reflection in the shiny surface of the desk. “All of us work part-time here because we have other commitments, whether those may be other jobs or families at home or, in your case, class to attend.” He gestures at Eren and gives him that gentle grin again, clasping his hands back together and watching Eren’s responses. “I am not an exception to this unofficial rule either; in addition to managing this establishment I work part-time as an attorney in close connection to the police force, a position I’ve held ever since I quit the field duty part of law enforcement.”

Leaning in a little closer to Eren, Erwin has this weirdly earnest, sincere expression that thaws whatever remaining fear and panic there is in Eren’s heart of hearts, or soul of souls, or wherever fear and panic happens to reside. “I’m telling you these things because I want you to know that this job is available to you if you want to take it, and although it’s true that it’s perhaps the only one that _will_ be available to you because of your past mishaps, I and my employees will never hold that over your head. We all live our lives, and you are more than welcome to live your own if you come to work here.”

Eren is reduced to a gaping mass of barely-restrained youth, reeling at the sudden kindness that Erwin has presented to him. “Right, uh, thank you,” he manages. His fists clench next to his thighs, and he realizes that, of all things he could be, Erwin Smith probably isn’t a horrible human being, because he is one of the few authority figures that Eren hasn’t wanted to punch in the face at their first meeting.

Erwin stands, rolling his black leather chair back, and Eren scrambles to follow. “You don’t have to give me a definite answer yet.” Walking around the massive desk, Erwin stops in front of Eren and takes one of his hands, sliding a white business card into it and closing Eren’s fingers around the square of cardstock. “Just email me within a week of today with your decision, please, and if your decision is yes then we can work out the technicalities, scheduling and official documentation and the like.”

“Thank you for this opportunity,” Eren finally says, trying to breathe all of his appreciation and honest gratitude into his words. Few people have welcomed him like this, he realizes, with welcoming arms and a clean slate, with a blind eye to the places he’s been and the mistakes he’s made. “Really.”

The blond man nods and takes Eren’s thanks in stride, and he smiles one of those eye-catching smiles again (Eren mentally notes this as a personality quirk or at least some sort of very well-practiced habit), a grin that builds from cheek to cheek until it almost _exudes_ warmth. “Don’t mention it, Eren. I trust you can see yourself out?”

Quickly sliding the business card into his pocket, Eren holds out his hand and gives Erwin a very firm handshake. “Yes, thank you,” he says again, making his way back to the wooden door leading into the hallway.

“Oh, and Eren?” Erwin calls suddenly, causing Eren to swivel around and look back curiously, one hand already on the doorknob. “Please don’t call me Eyebrow Erwin, ever.”

A quick twist of the handle and Eren’s out the door and down the hallway, hoping that Erwin doesn’t come and murder him in his sleep tonight. _Fucking hell –_

He pushes open the door leading back into the storefront, and a white paper box is promptly shoved into his unsuspecting arms. A noise of surprised protest emerges from his throat, and he stumbles back a little and the door almost slams in his face before he uses a foot to prop it open and ease slowly through it.

Waiting for him are the two employees from earlier, one looking distinctly uninterested and one looking entirely _too_ interested. The worker with the thick glasses is literally _bouncing_ with excitement, and Eren looks on with wonder and slight horror at this person’s overflowing energy. “This is just a little welcome gift!” the employee chirps loudly, putting both hands on Eren’s shoulders. Voice getting lower suddenly, the (eccentric, Eren thinks) worker stares intently at him and adds, “Open it at home, and use it well.”

Eren gently extricates himself from the employee’s grip and says a hurried “Thank you,” and he leaves the store at a near-run, only slowing down when he’s almost a block away from the establishment.

Hoisting the box under one arm and holding it at a bit of an awkward angle, he contemplates what could be inside. The container looks a little like a cake box, but he also figures that a sex shop doesn’t usually vend _cakes,_ and the box also feels too light to hold a food item of that size. He shrugs and tugs his phone out of his pants pocket, unlocking it with one hand and shooting a quick text to Mikasa ( _got the job_ , he says, and he conveniently ignores that the employment opportunity was practically shoved up his sorry ass, but he can let his ego take the blow later) and another one to Armin ( _guess who just got a job at a sex shop….)_.

He walks briskly toward his apartment and hopes Armin doesn’t have much going on right now, because Eren kind of wants to have some sort of social interaction tonight and he doesn’t currently have any plans to socially interact.

His hopes quickly fly out the metaphorical window when his phone vibrates and he reads the reply: _SWAGGER JAGGER does that mean u gon get some ass now??? ;)_

 _assface where’s armin and what did u do to him,_ Eren shoots back, eyebrow twitching only _slightly_.

_we’re on a date, WHICH u would’ve known if u’d checked armin’s snapchat story :((( but apparently u live in the ice age or smth_

_give him his phone back or i’ll punch ur nose like i did last month_

_stfu jagger that didn’t even hurt_

Chuckling to himself and hefting the damn gift box into a more comfortable position, Eren recalls that Jean ended up with a sizable bruise just under his left cheekbone and complained about it for a good few days – so yes, it probably did hurt, and yes, _maybe_ Armin had a serious conversation with Eren after their altercation about how even though Jean and Eren are closer friends now than they were in high school, that doesn’t mean they can still pick fights out of nowhere with each other.

 _Hey Eren!_ Armin _finally_ texts, and Eren lets out a satisfied sigh when he sees the proper grammar. _Sorry; Jean and I are out shopping, and he took my phone when I was trying on scarfs. Congratulations on your new job! Don’t get fired this time._

_wasn’t planning on it, thx for the tip_

_Yeah, no problem! Jean and I will be busy tonight, but we can celebrate tomorrow, alright?_

Eren replies with an affirmative, and he mentally prepares for what’ll likely shape up to be a night of TV-watching and takeout-eating by consoling himself with the idea of hanging out with Armin tomorrow. (Armin and Jean, on the other hand, will be very much _busy_ tonight, and Eren would prefer to keep his mind off of those mental images, so he thinks instead of how hungry he is right now.) Taking a short detour, Eren drops by a Chinese restaurant and orders a small dish of sushi, even though he’s reasonably sure from his many years of public schooling that sushi is Japanese, and he puts it on top of the mystery box and spends the rest of the way home trying to make sure that other people on the sidewalk don’t accidentally bump into him and knock his food to the ground.

He finally makes it to his front door, and he blusters inside with a turn of his keys and a litany of cussing when the doorknob gets jammed. Kicking off his shoes, Eren pads into the kitchen (more of a kitchenette, really, as tiny as it is) and flicks on the light and puts his food and his present-box-thing side by side on the countertop. He considers the merits of each and opts to open the box first, because that seems appropriate.

Which it isn’t, not in the slightest, and Eren suddenly imagines himself dying a rather melodramatic death by heart attack in the middle of his apartment, alone, with _a white box holding a black dildo_ sitting innocently in front of his corpse.

The dildo has 12 different vibration settings and feels “ _just as natural as a real penis_ ,” as the packaging cheerfully announces when he picks it up gingerly from the box, and Eren briefly considers using it as an electric mixer or something before deciding that it’ll likely make all of his baking endeavors taste like cock – by the transitive property, or whatever.

Eren plucks his sushi delicately from the tiny counter and maneuvers to the tiny dinner-and-breakfast-and-study-and-everything-else table and sets it down, shrugging his cardigan onto the back of the chair before he eases into the seat. He eats slowly with the tiny pair of chopsticks the restaurant clerk reminded him to get before he left with his purchase, and he _maybe_ doesn’t do such a good job at not thinking about dildos and sex and the lack thereof of both of those things in his life for far too long.

The empty plastic container goes in the sad-looking trash can that Eren honestly should have trashed by now, and Eren goes in his room to rummage around for a fresh pair of batteries, because _fuck it_. It’s been a good few months (five months, exactly, not that he’s been counting) without human contact, and maybe he’s a _bit_ horny, and, well, his night hasn’t exactly been eventful by any stretch of the imagination.

Batteries eventually emerge from the strange mishap that he calls his room, and he rips open the friendly dildo package and inserts the batteries into their respective slots, and he honestly feels a little ridiculous right about now. So he retreats back into his room and makes himself comfortable on his bed, and he palms himself through his shitty khakis.

A hiss escapes his lips, and Eren lets his head fall back to lie against the headboard. When the tightness gets a little uncomfortable he manages to inch himself out of his pants – they join the swathe of clothes on the carpet, and his boxers fall a little off to the side of the pile. His shirt stays on if only to make himself feel marginally less awkward, and he finally takes his cock, heavy and flushed and weeping, rubbing it gently with one hand, down one vein and tugging up to the head, just the way he likes it.

It’s shameful, really, the way he tilts his head back to stare glassy-eyed at the ceiling, jaw slack and a barely-there moan pushing its way up through his throat and into the pulsing air, the way he fumbles with his dick like a jaded high-schooler discovering pleasure for the first time, the way he arches into his own touch when he presses, hard, against the head of cock. He moans, for real, this time, a single sound cutting through the silence of his apartment.

He still has a hand on his dick when he realizes that he forgot to find lube, and he hasn’t used any in so long that he has to think for a moment and cuss (“ _Fuck, I’m so stupid.”)_ before he gets off the bed and opens the top drawer of his bedside table – his cock hangs thick between his legs, and Eren can feel the flush-red creeping through his body and settling on his face, on his chest, on the tip of his dick. He finds a small, half-used bottle of lube behind a box of staples and some old Starburst wrappers, and he takes it with him as he climbs back on top of the wrinkled bedsheets.

Staying on his knees, Eren hastily squeezes a liberal amount of the liquid onto his fingers (it smells wet, somehow, and he briefly wonders when _wet_ became a smell); he throws the lube away and hopes that it lands somewhere he can find it later, and he braces one arm on his pillow, and he reaches behind him and eases his middle finger carefully into his clenching hole.

The heat is tight and _strange_ and his body isn’t used to the intrusion anymore, so Eren grits his teeth and thrusts once, twice, tests the subtle stretch – “Ah,” he mumbles, and adds another finger soon, because he’s never been one to wait, not when his cock throbs whenever his fingers enter and probe the walls of his asshole, not when he feels the sweat start to bead on his forehead and the sheen start to build on his skin.

It’s not _deep_ enough, suddenly, and he has three fingers in his ass now, and he lets his face fall to the pillow so the angle isn’t as awkward, and he thrusts and pulls and thrusts until the slow burn of pleasure starts to ripple across his body. His cock brushes the sheets, staining them with the steady drip of precum, but Eren can’t quite bring himself to care. He _whines – “Ah” –_ a soft high-pitched sound that somehow makes him harder, makes him want to get this over with but also _not_ , because it _hurts_ with his arm bent at a difficult angle and his hole straining to accommodate the fullness of his fingers and his legs struggling to support his body, but it also feels so _good, feels_ so much like a bit of something that he hasn’t known all this time that he’s missed.

The _schlick_ of his fingers leaving his asshole makes Eren shudder, and he can feel himself clenching around the emptiness even as he looks around for the lube again – he’s _hot_ , the flames licking his insides and burning him, eating him alive, and he needs something to stoke the fire, something bigger and thicker and _deeper_ than just his hands alone. Eren mutters a few curses that end up coming out more as breathy intonations when he realizes that the lube is probably irretrievable at this point, hidden in the mess of his room. So he yanks his shirt off instead, tousling his hair and mussing a few strands into his eyes, and he tucks them behind his ears even as he grabs the dildo and determines that no, it’s not going in dry.

Eren’s never been one for making excellent on-the-spot decisions, so he sticks the whole thing in his mouth, because saliva is, well, as good a lubricant as anything else. The phallus – when did things become so _scientific?_ – is thick, heavy, _substantial_ , everything a real cock would be minus the musk and the heat, minus the flushed, panting person it would normally be attached to. He swirls his tongue around the tip and down to the base, running lightly over the small ridges marking the vibration strength, little suckling sounds escaping his mouth; he probably looks obscene like this, he thinks, alone on his bed tonguing a dildo with his asshole dribbling lube onto his bedsheets.

He flips languidly onto his back, brown locks splaying against the headboard and the pillow, and he reaches down and pumps once, twice, and his precum joins his spit on the dildo when he pushes it in, slowly, carefully, inch by inch by inch. “Shit,” he says, lidding his eyes halfway, and he can feel the waves pulsing now, breaking against the pressure of the fullness in his ass. With another small thrust, the dildo slides all the way in and it touches _something_ , and Eren _jerks,_ soft little whines spilling into the air when he begins to thrust again and again.

Pausing, Eren feels along the length of the dildo and finds the little notch – he flicks it, and the power turns on, and suddenly he’s caught in the throes of a hurricane, and his eyes snap wide-open and his jaw goes slack. The vibrating _thing_ inside of him throbs against his prostate and it’s _blinding_ , it’s some sort of spell, it makes him cry, _loud_ , makes tears spring to his emerald eyes and makes Eren find the button to turn the vibration higher and press it a few times only to wind himself tighter and tighter, playing himself like a guitar string about to snap. He reaches his unoccupied hand up to his chest and finds a nipple and _twists_ , and his legs tense and more moans join the wet noise of the dildo, the sounds of its vibrations, the spin of his bedroom around him, the dizzying spirals that seem to catch him and drop him and throw him in the air again.

When he jams the dildo in one more time and it _pulses_ against his prostate, everything explodes – the shrapnel blazes through his nerves, setting off little bombs all along his dick, his quivering thighs, his chest, and Eren _arches,_ shivering into the pleasure as he comes apart, whimpers floating into the air and settling against his spent muscles. White splatters against his bedsheets and against his stomach and thighs and hand, white on off-white and white on pretty suntanned skin. Eren’s left with a blank, dazed, wrung-out sort of look on his face, and when he remembers to pull the dildo out of his ass he winces, watching with vague interest when it drips stains onto his bed. He’ll probably hurt, a lot, tomorrow, but right now he’s still cradled in the haze of satisfaction and he doesn’t need to _think._

Rolling off the bed carefully, if only to avoid smashing his softening cock against the bedframe, Eren makes his way to the bathroom – he needs a shower, because dried cum has never been his favorite thing, surprisingly enough.

He looks wrecked when he gazes into the mirror: hair tousled and pupils still blown a little wide, cheeks a fading red, flush still painting his neck and his chest. He doesn’t know why he stares at himself for longer than he needs to, why he cares so much – there’s nobody here to see him like this, see him after he succumbs to pleasure and loses himself in that tidal wave of sex and heat and lust.

Maybe that’s actually why he cares so much – there’s nobody here to see him like this.

He should maybe wash his sheets tonight, because they are stained and discolored and wrinkled, a messy reminder of the things he does at night, all alone in his bedroom in the dim apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk trashy headcanons and shit with [me](http://adaryble.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a plea in Erwin’s eyes, and it scares Levi, has always scared him, the fear and pain that hides behind the man who always knows what he’s doing, the man who never falters and never fails to make the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coughs aggressively hi everyone! i've been busy getting my life together, or at least more together than it used to be.... also this chapter took literal ages to write because writer's block is fun. and of course it's long af to overcompensate. 
> 
> in other news, thank you for all your support and love! all of these characters are dear to my poor beating heart and i hope they become that way for you guys as well <3 
> 
> also the ships are getting out of hand i apologize ahead of time (aka eruri happens in this chapter you were warned)

It’s been God-knows-how-long since that bright-eyed college kid came in for his entrance interview, and Levi can _hear_ his IQ dropping steadily for every day that he has to come to work and suffer through having Hanji as his only co-worker.

“Hey, Levi,” they say, sidling up to him, and Levi fights the urge to book it the hell out of the store and get as far away as possible from his _lovely_ companion. “I wonder where that kid from – two weeks ago? – is right now? Why hasn’t he started working yet?”

“Go harass one of the customers,” Levi snaps back at them, pointing vaguely at one of the shelves and immediately regretting his words – he should’ve realized that Hanji wouldn’t be aggressively _conversing_ with him unless there weren’t any other people in the store to corner. Now he’s given Hanji more ammunition to use when they “tease” him in a “friendly” manner about not paying attention to the customers in the store in favor of “daydreaming” about –

“You know, he had really pretty eyes,” Hanji muses out loud, falling into their absentminded habit of opening and closing the cash register over and over again, _click clack click clack._

Levi chooses to glare at the source of the metallic noise and mutter some unintelligible curses under his breath, lapsing into a stoic silence when Hanji leans in to make out what exactly he’s saying. He gingerly scoots away from them until he’s a good distance away, proceeding to diligently ignore his co-worker and hoping that his unspoken communication – or lack thereof – manages to go through the thick layers of Hanji’s skull and reach their brain. Watching the people outside of the store through the window, Levi drums his fingers against the marble counter to the rhythm of their steps. _One, two –_

 _Two weeks,_ he thinks, promptly followed by _it doesn’t fucking matter, so why should it matter?_

“My capacity for logical reasoning is going straight to hell,” he announces to nobody in particular, earning him a sideways glance from Hanji, who is evidently finding great amusement in seeing how loudly they can bang the cash drawer closed after sliding it out on its creaky joints. He turns to them, hoping that the look of pointed annoyance painted across his face isn’t _too_ obvious. “Since there is currently not a single poor soul whom I can offer my services to, I’m going to find Erwin.”

Hanji pauses mid-slide, gazing intently at the stacks of coins inside the register, a smirk stealing across the crinkles around their eyes as they watch Levi stalk away. “Five bucks that Erwin isn’t going to tell you anything about pretty-boy –“

Levi’s hands search for the closest thing to chuck at his _goddamn_ co-worker, and he succeeds in pulling something out of his jeans pocket and _hurling_ it at Hanji’s head, and Hanji ducks, doubled over and positively _cackling_.

… _Fuck._

Stomping back toward his fellow employee, Levi retrieves his car keys and angrily leaves again. Maybe Hanji will cut their forehead on the still-open cash register drawer. Karma, or whatever.

He blusters in through the door of Erwin’s office, coming to a stop directly in front of a head of blond hair. “You and Hanji have been conspiring,” Levi says, bluntly, waiting for Erwin’s eyes to flicker from the computer screen in the corner of his huge-ass desk to him.  

His boss grunts, finishing whatever he’s doing and pressing a couple more buttons with a flourish. Then Erwin snorts, realizing what Levi’s talking about. The laughter-lines scrawled into his face deepen when he fucking _chuckles_ after he notices the scowl gracing Levi’s expression. “Don’t act so _offended,_ ” he offers, leaning back in his leather chair. “It’s not like we _did_ anything.”

“ _You_ , of all people, could’ve done _something,”_ Levi counters, folding his arms and contemplating the merits of tapping his foot just to hammer home the fact that he’s rather unimpressed by Erwin’s explanation. “Like, oh, not leaving me to die a slow and painful and _shitty_ death by Hanji.”

“Is that what this is about?” Erwin stands up, rolling the chair back until it almost hits the wall behind him. Skirting the edge of his desk, he walks up to Levi until they’re nearly chest-to-chest – or chest-to-neck, because even after all these years Erwin still apparently finds the height difference a good bargaining chip. So Levi refuses to be intimidated, if only in an attempt to rattle Erwin a little bit. “Or is it about _Eren?”_

When the name rolls off Erwin’s tongue like it’s a particularly interesting bit of information that he’s just been _waiting_ to reveal, Levi files it away for future reference (it makes sense, somehow, with the kid’s – _Eren’s_ – demeanor and everything, or at least what Levi’s seen of it) and glares at Erwin, because somehow, the ball’s still in his fucking court.

“I didn’t say anything, did I? Stop making assumptions.” Levi realizes that he’s losing this particular battle, but hell if he can’t at least try to win the war.

A small, quickly-swallowed laugh escapes Erwin’s throat, and he rests a large hand on Levi’s shoulder. “No need to get defensive.”

“Don’t _patronize_ me.” Levi pointedly peels Erwin’s hand away finger by finger, realizing that he can either a) back up so he can avoid having to look _up_ into Erwin’s eyes or b) stand his ground but have to bear with that _annoying_ couple of inches separating their heads – or he can stare belligerently at Erwin’s suit, which is what he’s already been doing.

“I’m _technically_ your boss, which _technically_ does make me your patron.”

“Fuck off.” _When in doubt, resort to expletives and then make a quick retreat_. Levi pivots away from Erwin, who is watching him with the sort of mild curiosity that Levi usually associates with a person observing zoo animals, so _fuck him,_ and makes his way toward the exit. “ _Thank you_ for your time,” he says, sarcastically, over his shoulder.

Erwin full-on _chortles_. And then he falls silent, a kind of calm-before-the-storm suddenly pervading the room _._

“Levi,” he calls quietly. “Stay after today, okay?”

And Levi pauses for a moment, hand on the doorknob, waiting, long enough to let Erwin know that he’s heard. The request is phrased as such: a question, a favor, one that Levi can refuse. He swings the door open and takes a step forward, letting it fall shut.

When Levi returns to the shop counter, he finds that Hanji is _still_ trying to destroy the cash register, immersed in what’s probably their version of “explorative music” that involves copious amounts of eardrum-rattling noise. “You owe me five dollars,” Levi practically has to shout in their ear, proceeding to hold the coin drawer closed so Hanji can’t open it again.

They glare at him. “I was having fun,” Hanji protests. “Unlike you, _I_ don’t have a way to occupy myself, so I’ve resorted to occupying my hands.”

Scoffing, Levi nods his chin at the various shelves in the store. “You could clean or something, instead of attempting to break property that isn’t yours.” He wisely ignores Hanji’s rather pointed _insinuation_ that he’s rather fixated on a certain _someone_ , because going down _that_ road would probably earn him a raging headache for all his troubles.

He’s also explained _multiple_ times already that the person – _Eren_ – is only a subject of interest in the first place because he has this uncomfortable, nagging feeling that he’s seen the kid somewhere before. Hanji laughed at Levi the first time and laughed at him the next few times, so he’s already given up on expecting help, or moral support, or whatever he was initially expecting, from them.

Reaching under the counter and retrieving a clean towel (always in-stock, courtesy of Levi, please and thank you) and a bottle of cleaner – looks like Windex, from the color of the nozzle, not that Levi’s particularly _well-versed_ in that area or anything – Hanji traipses off to do what is likely going to be a shitty job of sanitizing the display shelves. “Are you gonna tell me what kind of information Erwin divulged?” they toss over their shoulder. Levi chucks another towel at them, which doesn’t end as well as he’d hoped, because Hanji catches it and promptly descends into a laughing fit.

“Chortle at the dust, you fucking asshole,” Levi calls, glaring at Hanji’s ponytail.

“Nobody uses that word anymore!” His coworker glances warily back at him to make sure he’s not going to throw anything else, a grin stretching its way across their face. “I’ll be sure to do an excellent job cleaning the displays,” they exclaim, diving down to dab vigorously at a spot on one of the shelves. Something about the way Hanji’s eyes keep darting up and down leads him to suspect that they’re actually reading the label on the most recent brand of strawberry-flavored lube ( _ew,_ but it’s not like Levi has a choice about what he’s forced to sell to other people, although he supposes that he could complain to Erwin) that the store’s started vending.

Shitty people and their shitty hygiene.

He spends the rest of his workday mostly manning the cash register – he _really_ needs to get that bell removed, because it rings every time someone walks in, and if Hanji doesn’t drive him crazy the fucking _bell_ will – and _kind of_ thinking about how the name Eren has a certain softness to it, a kind of smoothness that rolls off his tongue like caramel… Or something like that, anyway, but meanwhile Levi hangs Hanji out to dry and doesn’t let them back behind the counter so that he doesn’t have to be the one to deal with the customers who have questions. Although whether or not Hanji actually minds is questionable, because they perk up rather excitedly whenever the door opens – probably to get away from the cleaning, Levi thinks sardonically.

When closing time rolls around Hanji still manages to look like they’re about to bounce through the fucking roof, and as he pulls a Clorox wipe from the container underneath the counter to scrub down the cash register, he makes a mental note to ask Hanji what kind of drugs they seem to be taking on a daily basis.

“I’m going on a date with Moblit,” Hanji sing-songs, throwing their cleaning supplies rather aggressively onto the countertop and ambling over to where Levi is diligently disinfecting the countertop – he gingerly lifts Hanji’s dirty towel from the surface to get at the spot underneath it, relocating the cloth to the box underneath the counter that Levi’s neatly labelled with “DIRTY TOWELS.” It’s pretty straightforward, so much so that he’d imagine that even Hanji would take a hint, but apparently life works in cruel ways. Hanji hurries through the employees-only door and emerges a short while later without their nasty olive-green apron that they like to insist counts as a work uniform: “I’m leaving now, Levi! I hope you get that stick out of your ass tonight!”

“Kindly _fuck off,_ Hanji,” Levi grumbles. “And I really don’t need you narrating your life to me.”

“Someone’s just _jealous_ that I actually have someone to go on a date with,” his coworker says cheerfully as they breeze past him, and by the time Levi makes up his mind to run after Hanji with a chainsaw someday, they’re already out of the store and roaming down the sidewalk. _Damn._

When Erwin finally deigns to make an appearance – probably doesn’t want to associate with the plebeians _too_ much, what with being the boss and all – Levi’s started cleaning the display shelves, paying particular attention to the areas that Hanji “cleaned” earlier. An irrational part of him insists that Hanji probably managed to make the shelves even dirtier than they were before.

“You’re still cleaning?” Erwin says eventually, hovering behind Levi, whose head is currently located in between two rows of vibrators. “Go home, Levi.”

“I’m not even halfway done, _Erwin,”_ is his muffled reply.

Silence settles as Levi breathes in the comfortable smell of lemon. Evidently Erwin doesn’t find the idea of a clean and presentable store appealing, though, because he starts doing his intense eyebrow-stare thing that Levi can _feel_ even if he’s trying to focus on the damn cleaning. “I kept thinking about you today,” the other man offers softly, walking closer to Levi and practically _leaning_ on his ass.

“Oh, so now you’re both nosy _and_ a pervert. That’s new.”

“Levi.”

“Erwin _Smith_.” He hopes the annoyance _oozes_ out of his voice and sinks into Erwin’s immaculate suit, his perfect hair, his fucking eyebrows –

Straightening up, Levi sighs. “Okay,” he says, about to go and toss his used towel into his handy-dandy cardboard box under the counter.

But Erwin’s _there,_ somehow, in his space, a warm hand pressed against the back of his neck, a pair of lips coming up to meet his own in a breathless, heavy kiss. It’s sloppy, if only because Levi’s thoughts are swiftly settling on the fact that they’re still in the front of the store and how there are _glass windows_ facing the street and how it’ll probably be some sort of violation of public decency if and when Erwin starts to _get frisky._ “Erwin,” Levi hisses, pulling back a little and watching the red flush creep across the other man’s cheekbones. “You’re so fucking stupid.” Levi takes Erwin’s arm and tugs his boss behind him as he makes a quick detour to get rid of his dirty towel before ducking through the wooden door and into the break room.

“I’m working tonight, you know,” he tosses casually over his shoulder as he gathers all his things so that he doesn’t forget anything later. It’s a barbed comment, laced with a kind of threat that Levi avoids thinking too hard about, tangled with a kind of bitterness that Levi chooses to ignore – and it has Erwin stepping over quickly, running a hand through Levi’s hair before tugging him into another kiss.

The kiss is aggressive, desperate, and Erwin licks his way into Levi’s mouth like he has something to prove, or maybe something to _own_ , soft grunts finding their way into the still, waiting air of the employee room. Levi thinks briefly about how all of his poor coworkers will have no idea of the _things_ that happen here occasionally, because this isn’t the first time, and when Erwin pulls away and pushes Levi down to his knees, he reminds himself that this probably won’t be the last.

He takes his time: he unbuckles Erwin’s belt with a smooth _shnick,_ lets it hang limply from Erwin’s hips, eases open the other man’s pants with a quiet kind of experience. Already straining against his Calvin Klein ( _always,_ Levi thinks with a sort of implied eye-roll) boxer briefs, Erwin’s erection feels warm against Levi’s mouth.

“You’re like a teenager sometimes, but without the stamina,” he jibes, smirking at the way Erwin’s eyes are already starting to get that faraway look, the way he shudders just a tiny bit when Levi peers up and him and digs his fingers into the band of his boxers and pulls until his clothing is bunched loosely around his ankles.

Levi takes Erwin’s cock into his mouth inch by inch, slowly, relaxing his mouth around the considerable girth and waiting for his gag reflex to calm the hell down. But he doesn’t do much by way of complaint when Erwin (ever the impatient one, the asshole) tangles a thick hand in his hair, gently guiding him until the tip of his length hits the back of Levi’s throat – and he chokes a little, pulling back as tears spring to his eyes, glaring at how _smug_ Erwin looks. “Sorry,” the other man mutters, pushing lightly on Levi’s head until he dips back down to take Erwin’s cock back into his mouth.

There’s this smell he always associates with Erwin – it’s a combination of his subtly expensive cologne, his musk, his _hugeness,_ a mix of all the things Levi simultaneously loves and hates about this man. Breathing through his nose, he places his hands on the table behind his boss and lets Erwin fuck against his throat; they both know that Erwin loves the satisfaction of hearing Levi’s blown, rasping voice the next day at work, and they both know that Erwin has a _thing_ for the way Levi’s gray eyes hold onto his blue ones when he looks up, scalp tingling with the way Erwin tugs on his hair. 

Little noises hiss through Erwin’s clenched teeth, falling in broken pieces around Levi’s kneeling body. Levi always finds it amusing, how this great, big, confident, _calm_ man falls apart when he gets a blowjob – _this is how empires fall,_ he thinks, hollowing his cheeks so that Erwin can feel the suction, can feel Levi’s lips on his cock and spiral into the pleasure he finds from getting off in the employee break room after work hours.

“Levi,” Erwin says quietly, the way he always does before his body shudders, a full-on shiver that ripples through his muscles before his thighs tense and his toes curl and his face slackens over with a dazed sort of happiness. So Levi lets his hands fall from the table and moves them so that they cup Erwin’s balls, and he fondles them for only a moment before Erwin finally shoots white into Levi’s mouth, cumming with an uncharacteristically loud grunt (maybe it’s the silence and inappropriateness of their current environment, the incessantly chatty part of Levi’s mind offers). Levi’s never been fond of swallowing semen – just thinking about it is enough to make his groan and try to think about something else – so when Erwin’s hands disengage themselves from his hair, he’s already dabbing gingerly at the cum that paints the corners of his lips and standing up to spit out the rest of it into the sink in the corner of the room.

Erwin stays where he is, leaning heavily against the table and breathing erratically. “What about you?” he asks, and Levi turns on the faucet before throwing a dirty look over his shoulder at the apologetic look Erwin’s trying to plaster over his still-dazed expression.

Water splashes over his hands and he washes them, watching the traces of white circle down the drain, and then he bends over to cup some of the running water and rinse his mouth, and finally he straightens. “I don’t have time. I already told you I have work tonight,” he says, doing a surprisingly good job at sounding unconcerned about his current boner while simultaneously turning the knob to shut off the water.

There’s a brief pause as Levi shuffles over to his leather messenger bag and maneuvers it until the strap sits comfortably on his right shoulder before he looks over at Erwin again. And Levi regrets it immediately.

“Don’t go.”

 _You don’t have to do this,_ is what he really means.

There’s a plea in Erwin’s eyes, and it scares Levi, has always scared him, the fear and pain that hides behind the man who always knows what he’s doing, the man who never falters and never fails to make the right decision.  

“Dammit,” he mutters, and he steps quickly past Erwin and out the store, leaving the other man behind to tuck himself back into his pants and boxers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mmm watcha say ha ahaha](http://adaryble.tumblr.com)


End file.
